Compared to what you’re used to, this photo is undeniably crappy. But it’s the only one I have to hand of something really quite interesting: the distal ‘whiplash’ part of the diplodocid tail.

A hat-tip to Paul Barrett, who’s reminded us that technically we’re not supposed to be using photographs of Natural History Museum specimens — at least, not without acknowledgement.

Now that the Xenoposeidon frenzy is over, we seem to be settling down to about one SV-POW! post per week … which on the face of it is not too unreasonable for a blog with “of the week” in its title.

Welcome to another SV-POW! world first: the first ever outing (to my knowledge) of a photo of BMNH R5333, an articulated set of two-and-a-bit titanosaur caudal vertebrae. These vertebrae come from the famous Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight: they are from the Lower Cretaceous, and specifically from the Barremian.

We promised non-presacrals and non-brachiosaurids, so here’s a diplodocid caudal vertebra in right lateral view. Most of the neural spine is blown off. The huge hole in the side of the vert is legit, though. That’s a pneumatic foramen (literally, air hole), through which air-filled tubes connected to the respiratory system entered the bone–just like in birds. More on that later.